Lyr Add: Brown Is the Shit (Stephen L. Suffet)

Subject: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 07:44 PM

BROWN IS THE SHIT

Words: Stephen L. Suffet © 2001
Music: RED IS THE ROSE (trad)

Brown is the shit, my flowers grow in it,
And without it I could not plant my garden,
But at times my shit will smell, like the furnaces of Hell,
And for that I humbly beg your pardon!

I came to sing a song and to help this world along,
And maybe add my voice to the choir,
But when I open up my mouth, the shit comes pouring out,
And that isn't what I desire.

I simply cannot say how I went astray,
I only wanted to be helpful,
I never meant to hurt, nor to sling around the dirt,
But I guess I wasn't very careful.

So now I will shut up before I add more smut,
To a world that's already sullied,
Don't ask for my advice, or expect me to be nice,
And I'll be not the bully nor the bullied.

Brown is the shit, my flowers grow in it,
And without it I could not plant my garden,
But at times my shit will smell, like the furnaces of Hell,
And for that I humbly beg your pardon!



Note: I wrote this song without any particular individual in mind.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeep man
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:16 PM

How did Mudcat get this low? Jeep

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:22 PM

Point well taken Steve.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:28 PM

Just remember that I wrote this without any particular individual in mind. It is neither biographical nor autobiographical, and yet it can apply to any of us at times. Maybe we can see our own selves speaking with the voice of the singer; maybe we can't. But we all have the capacity to intend good and turn out being hurtful, especially when we get caught up in the passions of the moment. And then, if we are fundamentally of people of good will, our inclination is to withdraw. That is until the next good scrape come along.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:32 PM

I meant until the next good scrape comes along. Thirty years a teacher and I still can't get those pesky little subjects and verbs to agree. How am I ever going to get people to do the same?

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:35 PM

Yeah. Those who insist on perfection are inevitably disappointed, and I guess that includes me.

Yet the enlightened see perfection all around them...not insisting...

Enlightenment is clearly some way off at this point, at least as far as I'm concerned.

- LH

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:35 PM

-I dont like your song i think its silly.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:47 PM

Forgive me, Steve, but if I got pissed off enough to feel the sort of things in your song, I wouldn't feel much like singing, and I don't think I'd want my friends around if I did sing that one. Shit splatters when you fling it hard enough.

Well, I wrote one that has this chorus:
Oh, I'm the one who'll tell you what is right and what is wrong
And if you don't agree, you are a jerk
It would be a far, far better place if I were put in charge
I'm the only one who knows the way the world should work
...but I had my sense of humor engaged at the time. (And maybe folks mostly ignored the thread where I posted it because the humor wasn't that evident.)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:48 PM

Once a year, my co-op's Garden Committee fertilizes. The stench is unreal - I live on the first floor and bear the brunt of it. But then we have the most beautiful gardens to enjoy all year round. Wedding parties come in for photographs; children have birthday parties; graduations, first communions, memorial services, concerts, spontaneous song circles and parties. Marriage proposals and divorce agreements have been finalized there. Multiple cats, dogs, turtles, birds, hamsters, etc. lie interred in it. The place is heaven. So I put up with a little shit once in a while.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Áine
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:52 PM

Dear Steve,

I admit, I initially looked at this thread expecting some kind of rant, and I was pleasantly (yes, fellow 'Catters, pleasantly) surprised to find your song. Now, I can't say that your poetic prowess is Grade A (yet); however, I got the point of your song and I like the idea behind it.

Come on, 'Catters, don't get hung up on a pretty innocuous four letter word -- one that I'm fairly sure most of you use as an invective at least once a day -- read Steve's song over a few times, and I think you'll understand what he's trying to say. Really, what word would you expect him to use -- 'poo'??

Steve, as a mother of four, a person who is owned by two dogs and four cats, a person who tends a garden, and a former legal secretary, I've had to deal with enough shit, real AND euphemistic, to understand your song. I hope you keep writing -- you've got a way with words, my son! ;-)

All the best, Áine

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:59 PM

Áine, if you haven't already done so, search for "suffet" in the DT. He has written quite a few good ones. (I just don't care for this one - too passive/aggressive, and I've expended a lot of effort trying to recognise and slay that particular beast in my own personality.)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 10:06 PM

Ah, I just love Steve!

Hardi is in stitches.

~S~

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 10:06 PM

Jeri, it's meant to be passive-aggressive, but it's not necessarily meant to be autobiographical. My intent is to let us see the potential for passive-aggressiveness in each and any of us.

Are we ever going write some more songs together? "They're Not Writing Folk Songs Like They Used to Anymore" is one of my standards.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Black is the Soul
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 12:31 AM

Black is the soul -- his karma still within in it
Winking like a chilled and dying ember
Dead-frozen in the race yet swearing he shall win it
Pretending Spring, he lives in late December.

Cold is the lie wherein his lost soul dwelleth
Lost below rage's storm and desperate with fear
Violent the breath that in his true heart swelleth
Painted the face he dons for friends so dear.

Simple excuses!! Cover now the bleeding
Desperate inflictions from an ancient war;
Earnest intent will not touch the unheeding
Certain of dying, from a vanished scar!

Taraa!Taraa! The horns of glory warn him!
Strike first or die, your enemy at hand!
Taraa! Taraa! How terror does adorn him!
Failed in sweet living, and afeared to die!

Not about anyone in particular.

A

Subject: Amber Is the Beer
From: Suffet
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 06:17 AM

Amber is the beer and amber is the ale,
And amber is the good strong liquor,
And amber is the pee that soon they all will be,
But a song can transform even quicker.


© Stephen L. Suffet 2001


Not about any song in particular.


Anyone wish to try his/her hand at another color?

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 06:34 AM

Red is the nose, too much drinkin' I suppose
Pink is the colour of me eyeballs
Green is the sleeve where I usually wipe my nose
Oh why has my love left me?

Patrish xx

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: GUEST,Lori
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 08:29 AM

White is his hair except where his head is bare,
And white is his beard and his moustache,
And white are the lies he tells with smiling eyes,
As my heart he so gently touches.

Oh, first he did see me in Washington, D.C.,
When people on the Mall were sunning,
I asked him to my room, to play a loving tune,
And perhaps to do some fancy strumming.

He followed me there, then much to my despair,
His hands held only his old Martin,
Three hours passed in song, while my aching heart did long,
And still it did long at our parting.

Oh, are you so naieve? Or do you just believe,
It was only a little harmless flirting?
Am I ugly? Are you gay? Have your fires gone away?
Or do you like to leave a poor girl hurting?


This is about a particular individual. Smithsonian Folk Festival, 1998.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Matt_R
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 08:44 AM

Red is my ass from passing too much gas
Large is the hole in my boxers
When releasing all that air I knew they soon would tear
But I didn't know it too would rip my Dockers...

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Noreen
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 08:46 AM

Oh, Lori... I felt that...

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Maryrrf
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 09:37 AM

Raising two boys probably got me used to stuff like this and made me appreciate crude humor (think - Dumb and Dumber - yeah it really was dumb but it made me laugh!). I thought this thread was hilarious. It brightened up my Friday morning at work.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: mousethief
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 12:08 PM

I was expecting a take-off on "Black is the colour" --- along the lines of

Brown is the colour of my true love's shit
And black with snuff her long-range spit
The brownest eyes, the hardest hands
I can smell the ground whereon she stands

or something like that

Alex

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 12:20 PM

Oh brown is the color of my true love's hair
In the morning when we rise
In the morning when we rise
That's the time
That's the time
I love the best

But red is the color of my true love's hair
In the evening when I get home
In the evening when I get home
And the sink
Is tinted pink with residue

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: mousethief
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 12:20 PM

Ewwwww.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Ringer
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 01:24 PM

Oh, sorry: I thought this thread was about the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Noreen
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 01:59 PM

LOL Bald Eagle- never thought of that!

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 03:26 PM

Lori - ouch.
Matt - Spaw is recuperating so you're filling in? Doing well, young man.

Subject: Lori's song
From: GUEST,LW still at work
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 04:47 PM

Great job, Lori. Your song is one of impassioned sexuality without being the least bit bawdy. I know too many guys like that. They would rather play guitar than make love. Go figure.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 05:38 PM

OK, so it's still too passive/aggressive for me. Somebody might take it seriously.

Too brain-dead from a summer cold to think of a verse...

Green are my plants, and the grass stains on my pants
Lovely is the garden full of roses
I'd love the smell of it, if it didn't smell like shit
But the strongest odor's what gets up our noses

(I use Cock-A-Doodle-Poo on my garden, and boy, does it stink!)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: 2 in harmony
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 09:12 PM

Lori, maybe you were lucky. Young guys are often much better on their Martins than ...

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Matt_R
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 09:51 PM

I try, Sins.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 10:12 PM

Lori:

What hurts ME the most is that I would have NEVER continued to hold the guitar... but I've never had the opportunity to show that.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Deckman
Date: 08 Jun 01 - 10:45 PM

WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE GROW UP!

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: GUEST,Trsty
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 01:30 AM

Was that a dreadnaught Martin with the big box?

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 01:51 AM

Sinsull, I'm in tears, just sobbing away..........Our little boy is growing up and striking out with confidence into the world of the completely depraved......................*sigh*...................

Spaw

Subject: Reply to Lori's Song
From: Suffet
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 11:45 AM

Note: This is purely an intellectual exercize. Think of it in terms of my previous "answer" songs, such as "Willie McBride's Reply" and "The South Coast Revisited."

REPLY TO LORI'S SONG
Tune: "Red Is the Rose"
Words: Stephen L. Suffet © 2001

That day upon the Mall, I clearly do recall,
And the songs that we sang together,
Then you took me to your room, you said to sing a tune,
And to find a little shelter from the weather.

I told you way back then, I was a married man,
And I harbored no desire for cheating.
Is it really so absurd to be taken at my word,
Even though our passions were heating?

Oh, your beauty did allure, of that you can be sure,
As I felt the fires a-startin',
So to myself I said, as I sat there on your bed:
Steve, don't put down your Martin!

I still want to be your friend, may our friendship never end,
May we sing 'til the Sun sets upon us,
And I'll love you in a way that friends love every day,
Think of philos, not eros.


--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 12:43 PM

Oh Matt, I felt that!

~S~

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 12:49 PM

Mr Red (real name Brown) is not amused.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 01:08 PM

Brown are the stinky fingers of cigarette and cigar smokers. And they stink worse than the shit in Suffet's garden.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Matt_R
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 03:19 PM

Suffet, "Willie McBride's Reply" was YOURS? Whoa! I love that, man! I ALWAYS sing it after "The Green fields of France". It's brought a tear to my eye more than once, where Bogle's original DIDN'T.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 05:06 PM

There are two "Willie McBride's Reply" songs. One is a crude slapstick parody. The other is a serious song about a young man who feels that his death in the Great War was for something meaningful and important. I wrote the latter. You can find it in the Digital Tradition. It contains these lines:

Ask the people of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine,
If my life was wasted, if I died in vain.
I think they will tell you, when all's said and done,
They welcomed this lad with his tin hat and gun.


I am not the author of the comical parody.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Matt_R
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 05:11 PM

Yes, Suffet, that's the one I was speaking of! At the end where you have "We knew why we died, and we'd do it again and again and again" is where I usually break down.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 05:30 PM

Matt, I am flattered to hear your response. The irony is that I really love Eric Bogle's original. But I feel that there is more than one side to the story, and I felt it important to give a voice to the many Willie McBrides who believed that the Allied cause in the Great War was right and just. In the same manner I wrote "The South Coast Revisited" from the vantage point of the teenage girl who is used as property to settle her father's gambling debt to the son of a nobleman. And for a similar reason I wrote the response to Lori's song. In no instance would I want my reply to supplant the original.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: 2 in harmony
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 05:49 PM

Suffet,

Nice song to guest Lori. Was that philos as in"words" as opposed to love (eros)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 05:59 PM

"Philos" and "eros" both mean love. The distinction is the kind of love. Many English words derive from "philos," including "philosophy" (love of wisdom) and "philanthropy" (love of mankind). "Logos" means word. You can put the two together and get "philology" (love of words). A good friend of mine majored in Romance philology, i.e. the origin and development of the Romance languages.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: mousethief
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 06:09 PM

And "eros" means sexual love (Eros being the Greek god of .... um....)

Alex

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Matt_R
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 07:05 PM

Go ahead and say it Alex, you know you want to!! The God of Doin' the Nasty!!

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 07:16 PM

I thought that was implicit in my answer. The ancient Greeks also had a third word for love: "agape" (AH-guh-pay). It meant unconditional love, rather than love based on some reciprocity. The early Christians used the term "agape" to describe Jesus's love for humanity.

I'm not a Christian, but I learned that somewhere, even before we had the Internet.

By the way, Lori's song is erotic without being nasty.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 08:19 PM

I haven't read this thread right through yet, but every time I look at the title I think of the Michael Franti song called "Love is the shit"

In my (humble) opinion Michael Franti is one of the best poets of these two centuries. He's a rappy, hip-hoppy-type singer

Helen

"Love is the shit" (M. Franti/C. Hunter) performed by Spearhead

Say when you called me that night
to tell me that things
they weren't goin' alright with your boyfriend
was it me or did you just want somebody to talk to
Say is it you or the fact that I can't be near you
that keeps you in front of my mind
when your voice goes away
and a breath is the last thing that you say

But the warmth of your lips on my fingertips
won't go away
when I drop my head in my hands and play
the memory of that night in L.A.
again and again and again
because I can't think straight and I can't sleep late
the few times we shared I try to recreate
I know this is wrong better stop this talk
because grass can grow up through a crack in the sidewalk
and what I see when I look in your eyes
grass that's truly greenest sprouting inside
I wasn't even looking when I realized
that you had the vibe that was my fertilizer
thought love in this world was dead and buried and gone
how could I be so cynical when I was so young
you hit me in the chest like an 808 boom
I found love is the shit that makes life bloom

(chorus)
Love is the shit that makes life bloom
and you never know when you might step in it!
love is the shit that makes life bloom
and you never know when you might...

But fate is like a pigeon that follows me around
sometimes he flies ahead and he brings me what he found
then he'll drop it on my head leave me numb from the brain down
that's the way it was when I walked upon your ground

The irrepressible and impermissable
are the two things that have made my life miserable
'cause spirits don't leave when you don't talk about them
and memories come back when you don't think about them
I wish I had an ocean of some magic potion
I'd trade all this emotion for a for a few moments of motion
I've never felt this way some things can't be rehearsed
now I'm grindin' up my gearbox tryin' to find reverse
because

(chorus)

(bridge)
But I want to keep on walking
Right through
And let this feeling rock me
ooh-oooh!
(repeat)

"ya know falling in love is like easing into a hot tub
it feels good on your feet but by the time you get to your mid section
you know your either gonna get all the way in or all the way out!"

But music brings me cover in this grieving hour
the Sade tape tells me it's all over now
I listen real hard but don't dare play it loud
'cause I don't wanna think what you might be doin' now
sometimes it feels like a bad initiation but you
woke my heart from a long hibernation
you were worth every risk and so I gave my heart room
and now I'm deep in the doo-doo
that makes life bloom
because...

(chorus)

(bridge)
See the flowers bloomin' in the springtime
see the bees zoomin' in the sunshine
(repeat)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 08:33 PM

Ok, now I have read the whole thread.

Suffet, I like your song a lot - the first one, I mean. I have been in that frame of mind where I know that if I open my mouth only bad and sad and angry things will burst out uncontrollably, in a scatter-shot way, so I decide that keeping my mouth shut is better for everyone until I can regain my psychological and emotional balance.

I especially like the bit about not being the bully or the bullied. I can really relate to that - very specifically.

After having posted the song by Franti, I realise how well it fits with your song in response to Lori's song.

Nice work, everyone.

Helen

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 11:08 PM

SORRY!
A couple of days ago I said your song was silly,ive read it again it isnt.I read it proprly this time and it made me think.sorry again.john(in hull)